The Batter's Box
by ficdirectory
Summary: How Derek copes when he is injured on a case. WARNINGS: References childhood sexual abuse, PTSD **1st Place tie: Best Portrayal of a Main Character - Derek Morgan in the 2011 Criminal Minds Favorite Fic Awards at LiveJournal** **Nominated: Best Tragedy/Angst in the 2011 Criminal Minds Favorite Fic Awards at LiveJournal**


_When you step into the batter's box, have nothing on your mind except baseball. _

– Pete Rose

It is strange being back at the BAU. Strange to have to swear the oath again. Strange to work with these colleagues - these friends - Emily never thought she would see again. The first days are awkward, with Reid pissed off and Garcia elated. JJ and Hotch have known all along and Rossi recovers well enough, if her absence even affected him at all. She does not know where Morgan is with all of this. He is tense and watchful. It takes a good week or two until he is able to stop watching her like a hawk.

Today, he is working with JJ. They are out on the field together, which is strange, too, because those two have almost never worked together. If they have, it was before Emily joined the team.

Emily tries to focus on catching this unsub. To stop remembering. But to do that, she would need something to erase what has already happened.

_When the bat is swung it is quick, and focused - the way Derek, himself, used to swing, when he was in the batter's box. Only this time, he is not the one with the bat. He is being beaten with it. The guy only really gets one good hit, but it's enough. First on the scene, he thinks wryly, first to go down. _

_Derek falls to the ground. JJ has his back and pointing her gun at the guy. She positions herself directly in front of Derek, feet spread, ready to take this bastard on. _

_Derek admires that. But damn, his head hurts._

The sound resonates. It is sharp. A crack. And Emily feels certain she could hear it even if she were deep as the ocean, buried under water. She glances once at Rossi and the two of them take off toward the sound of the noise.

They arrive in time to see Morgan, on the ground. The unsub, high out of his mind - a bat poised and ready to swing - despite his wild eyes. JJ has her gun trained on him. Emily, unable to squelch years of being field partners with Morgan, helps him stand. She steadies him and studies his head for any clues to what has happened. There are none.

"Where did he get you?"

"I'm fine. He didn't."

"His head, Emily," JJ passes along, and then to their unsub, "You move, and I'll shoot you."

"Go ahead and try," the junkie taunts and takes a swing.

The sound of the gunshot makes Morgan flinch in a way only Emily can feel, because she is still holding on.

_Derek can't deal with the way Emily won't let him go. This combination, the hands and the bat, make him stiffen. It's a sign, but he can't think to clear his head and realize what exactly the memory is that's pulling at the back of his consciousness. _

_He can't lose it now. He has to convince them that nothing is wrong, so they'll leave him alone. He can't deal with this._

_But even as he opens his mouth, he knows he is no match for Emily, who is determined that he sit and be coddled like some damn infant._

"I am _fine_, Prentiss! I don't need a damn ambulance! Leave it alone."

This fake assurance just drives home the fact that Morgan is not fine at all. She notices the small things. The way he keeps shaking his head. How, despite everything, he has yet to take his hand off his weapon.

"Sit down," she insists, in her no-nonsense tone. "I am done playing games with you. Ambulance is protocol. Now knock it off."

When he gives in, and sits in the back of the ambulance it is like a physical pain. Because he is not just following orders. He is giving up. Letting himself be taken. Letting whatever is about to happen, happen without saying a word.

_The ambulance is hell. The sound of the siren bounces around inside his head, and Derek just wishes for it to stop. Every time he tries to close his eyes and take a deep breath, some irritating voice tells him to stay awake._

"_I _am_ awake," he insists, but it's getting harder to stay that way._

_When they arrive at the hospital, and the bed he's on starts to move, the motion is enough to make him vomit. He's never been motion-sick, but, he guesses, there is a first time for everything. _

_The lights are too bright. His head is killing him._

_That is his last clear thought before his body is thrown into convulsions._

Rossi knows there is no visiting Morgan in the hospital until they catch the latest unsub. Ironically, the one who attacked Morgan does not turn out to be who they are looking for after all, but it feels damn good to know that JJ took care of him. She knows how to defend herself, and her team. She always has. That's why he is so glad to see her back.

Prentiss, too, of course. Though her return was a bit more shocking. It's not every day one of your friends pulls a Lazarus and rises from the dead. It was no surprise to Hotch. No surprise to JJ. They were in on it. They had to be. Rossi saves the shock of it all for later, when he is by himself.

For reasons he doesn't know he dreams of a far green country. Prentiss is there, with lots of weapons and she is different, but he can't figure out how, exactly. He knows that this is not where she stayed while in Witness Protection. That this is somewhere else. When he wakes, sweating and gasping, he knows he will not ask her. There are some things that are better left alone.

He finds himself instead, thinking of Morgan. He finds himself making a call.

_The marks left on Derek are not external. Almost nothing shows up on the outside, but a faint bump. It's inside that he feels all messed up. He can't think or focus, and he hates the damn hospital. He hasn't called his family because he doesn't want them worrying about him. _

_Still, Rossi shows up with the rest, quietly coming in and taking chairs around the room. Really, Derek would rather they not be here at all. But he doesn't have the heart to tell them to go. He can't form any words at all._

Rossi and the team arrive hours later. It is close to 3 AM but the time hardly matters. They only just got back together, and Rossi will be damned if something like this is going to tear them apart.

He comes in and pulls up a chair. Morgan's eyes are darkly shadowed. Rossi knows enough to suspect concussion and maybe worse. When he asks, Morgan mutters something about a skull fracture. The words sound heavy and unnatural.

The hospital gets under Rossi's skin. But he stays.

_When Derek falls asleep, his dreams aren't dreams. They are flashbacks to his teenage years. His mentor showing up to defend the youth center from the gang-bangers, bat in his hand. _

_Derek shudders. He remembers another time the bat was used. He was young. Maybe twelve, the first time the son-of-a-bitch tried anything. At first, Derek had laughed, sure it was an accident. But when it happened again, and when that asshole gloated about it, Derek's stared at him, his eyes dark._

"_I'll tell," he'd said, and meant it._

"_You tell," the voice whispered in the dark, brandishing the bat, "and I'll bash your damn head in."_

Rossi doesn't know why, but when he visits Morgan in the Austin hospital, he thinks of something wild. Something yet to be tamed. It makes Rossi think of building trust, and how, often, there is nothing to say to make what is wrong seem better.

None of the rest have visited the hospital a second time, but Rossi has made a point of it. He wants Morgan to know that he is still part of them. Because he wishes he had this opportunity with Emily, but it never happened.

Morgan's eyes are faraway and glassy as he looks out the window. He barely says a word, except to reassure Rossi that he does not have to stay.

"Really. I'm okay," he insists.

Rossi wonders if he knows that as he speaks, he is shaking his head no.

_After the first time, Derek knew better. He kept his mouth shut. He knew, from watching, that the asshole had a temper. That he didn't make idle threats. So, he let it happen. He didn't say anything. He accepted the liquor and fun trips and tried to enjoy them and put the rest out of his head. _

_It was easy. Until he realized he could not hold a bat at practice or a game without breaking into a sweat and flashing back to the threat made against him. So, he'd done the easy thing. He quit. _

_When he told, later that night as things were happening - as hands were roaming his body and booze was clouding his mind - he heard approval._

"_Good. You're not a pansy baseball player, anyway. Football, that's a man's game. I'll teach you."_

_And even though the last thing Derek wanted, was to be taught by someone so disgusting, he nodded, feeling oddly fulfilled._

If there is anything Hotch despises, it is being a man down when they are in the midst of a big case. Doing without any of them is unimaginable. Losing JJ had been unforgivable. Losing Emily had been heartbreaking. Now, Hotch is forced to confront just how integral a part of the team Morgan is.

Hotch has always known. But they have never operated without him before. Not once in seven years. It is insufficient, to say the least. But in order to avoid a loss like JJ or Emily's, Hotch knows it is important to allow Morgan the time he needs to heal. A skull fracture is nothing to take chances with.

From the sounds of things, Morgan has already endured nasty side-effects. Vomiting. Convulsions.

Best not to take chances by reinstating him too soon. Especially as they are chasing down the worst of society's monsters.

_When the team visits him at home - all at once, or one at a time - Derek finds he can't stand it. They all make too damn much noise. Hotch, especially, and his throat-clearing. It's something he does in lieu of words. But right now, it irritates the hell out of Derek. To have him sit in Derek's living room, like he wants to be here, when Derek knows that no one in their right mind would want to be here with him._

_Not like this._

_His head is okay. It's the other stuff that bothers him the most. The stuff he can't speak aloud to anyone. Even though Hotch knows, and he probably wouldn't give Derek a hard time about it._

_But, the thing is, Derek can't speak it._

_So, they both sit in silence._

Hotch sits, ill-at-ease, in the easy chair with the dog sniffing him constantly. He sneezes. He looks around suspiciously for the cat before he remembers hearing stories about how Emily's little cat, Sergio, grieved her loss as deeply as the rest of them did.

"Did Emily take the cat back?" Hotch asks, curious.

"Yeah. First thing she did," Morgan answers, cringing.

Hotch is silent, wondering if Morgan even noticed how he jumped at the sound of another human voice.

_Derek hated losing that stupid cat. Even though they had the real Emily back, Sergio had been a nice proxy for her. He could talk to it and he could totally understand its little idiosyncrasies. When the cat didn't eat, Derek understood. When it walked around, looking all depressed and calling for Emily, Derek got it._

_He wishes Sergio were still here. Wishes there was something, somewhere, that could identify with the feelings coursing through him. _

_The cat knew what it was like to be depressed. Probably knew what it felt like to have nightmares, too. And for a second, Derek lets himself imagine that poor tiny thing, falling asleep with Emily there, and waking to find her gone, and the whole world changed in her absence._

_He shakes his head._

_Nothing really is as it seems._

Hotch leaves when JJ sends a text, letting him know they have a case. He can see the defeat in Morgan's posture, when he realizes.

"Sorry," Hotch apologizes.

Morgan shakes his head, dismissive. "You gotta do what you gotta do."

"All right, well… Take care…" Hotch offers, a little awkwardly. He doesn't touch Morgan, though he'd like to. But Morgan doesn't look like he can stand even the most casual touch.

"Hotch?" Morgan calls, when he is nearly out the door.

Turning, he waits.

"Get the bastard, all right?"

Hotch nods shortly, and continues out the door.

_Derek thinks the worst of this is not that he got his skull cracked. It's that he can't even get pissed about it without his head throbbing. The worst of it is that he has to somehow reconcile the awfulness of these two occurrences - one as a child, and one as a man - that have left him a shadow of himself._

_He does not feel like himself. He takes extra time to think of simple things. Words. Whether or not he feels hungry. How to make his speech sound natural and not halting and strange. He can mask it around Hotch, Rossi and the rest, but alone, or on the phone with his family, who he doesn't see often, they notice right away._

_The doctors call it pseudo-foreign accent, but it's not really an accent. It's like the words are suddenly funny shapes and he has to say them distinctly right, almost staccato, for them to come out clear. It works, but it sounds odd, and he has no discernable prosody whatsoever._

"_Why are you talking like that?" his mother asks._

"_Like what?" Derek retorts, playing dumb. He knows exactly how he sounds, so he tries his best to hide it. He does not admit that he thought he sounded normal until a doctor drew attention to it, as Derek repeated his one and only thought over and over, because, it seemed, people kept ignoring him._

"_I'm fine. It doesn't hurt."_

_They told him about the accent thing. But no one told him they could see through what he said. _

_That he obviously isn't fine._

Reid doesn't have big plans over the weekend, so he decides to stop by Morgan's and keep him company. Actually, Reid never has any plans on weekends, so it's quite fortuitous that Morgan is in this predicament. Reid is even willing to take care of that heinous dog so Morgan will not have to. He has plans to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended editions, and possibly all the Star Wars movies as well. Because Morgan is recuperating, Reid has already decided to let him choose.

Reid knocks on the door sharply. His satchel slung over one arm is packed with essentials: DVDs, his laptop, some Ramen, in case Morgan doesn't feel like cooking.

"The hell are you doing here?" Morgan asks darkly.

"Hey! You're up!" Reid begins excitedly. "It just so happens," he begins, trying to lower his voice because Morgan keeps squinting like all the sound hurts. "…that I have brought two of the most classic DVD collections in history. Since I didn't have any plans this weekend, I thought we could watch them…" Reid trails off at Morgan's blank look. "Or one or the other. Or both. Oh, and I can take care of the dog, if you want."

"I don't." Morgan manages.

Reid has registered the halting way Morgan speaks, and that he is doing his best to conceal it with some approximation of normal speech. On this issue, Reid is instinctively careful. He doesn't draw attention to it. Because of his own brief encounter with aphasia, Reid knows all-too-well what it's like to be different, even though you desire to be just the same.

It had been Morgan who helped Reid through that time.

Now, Reid is determined to return the favor, knowing their struggles will remain safely under lock and key.

_Having Reid here is worse than Hotch and Rossi combined, but Derek can't tell him that. The kid just wants to help, and honestly, Derek can't fault him for that. He just wishes that Reid didn't feel compelled to play every movie he brought along with the commentaries by actors, directors and any number of people. Derek can normally ignore what he doesn't want to see, but now, he can't filter out unwanted noise. It's like two conversations happening simultaneously and when Reid interjects an obscure fact or urges Morgan to listen carefully to something or other, Derek's confusion increases tenfold._

_What concerns him most is not that Reid is here now. It's that he plans on staying. He says he'll be on the couch, in case Derek needs anything. But Derek's couch is entirely too close to Derek's room, and he knows without a doubt that this means Reid will hear him when Derek wakes up in cursing and fighting, in the grips of a nightmare._

_Just as he has every night since this happened._

It's dangerous to go too near Morgan when he's screaming. Reid learns this quickly.

It's 1:49 AM when Reid hears it. He is watching The Return of the King with commentary on mute since Morgan seemed to not be interested in it earlier. He has subtitles on, though they don't include the commentary, but that's just fine with Reid because he has a lot of it memorized anyway. Then, there was the screaming. And Reid hadn't thought. He had just reacted.

"Morgan! Wake up!" Reid calls. Morgan throws a punch, which Reid takes, right in the mouth.

He reels back, tasting blood, and trying to keep his wits about him. What would Morgan want now, more than anything? What had _Reid _wanted when he had nightmares?

Backing up slowly, Reid found the switch on the wall and flipped it on, flooding the room with light.

_The darkness is heavy as a blanket, suffocating him. It is hard to breathe. The pain comes in waves, and Derek cannot tell what's worse. His head, or the rest of him._

_There's another voice. Unfamiliar and too damn close. He knows what it means when he hears more than one person. It means it will be twice as bad. So, he fights and breaks free, only to run in the unfamiliar streets, round a corner and feel the blinding pain of something crushing down on his skull._

_By the time he wakes, Derek can't think clearly, and it takes a few seconds to register Reid against one wall, bleeding from his mouth._

"_Sorry. I'm sorry," he apologizes._

_Then, Derek pushes past him and out the door, trying to get his breath back._

Reid does what he can think of to help. First, he gets ice for himself, so he will not look like something from a horror movie and frighten Morgan more than he is. Then, he opens the door softly and looks around outside.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually Reid finds Morgan with his dog in the yard.

Oh right. Reid was supposed to let him inside, like, five hours ago, but Frodo and Sam were right in the midst of their harrowing journey and he couldn't very well pull himself away from that, could he?

"It doesn't hurt," Reid offers, standing near Morgan, but not too close, as the dog has a thing about sniffing people and Reid doesn't like the fact that animal hair never really goes away once it attaches to a person.

"I know. I don't either," Morgan says, sounding stilted and angry. There is a silence and Morgan fills it. "You can go to bed. I'm okay."

"I wasn't in bed," he says and then Reid studies Morgan like a scholar. The pain clear in his eyes. His hunched posture. How incredibly tense he is.

"I think I'll stay for a while," Reid says softly, watching as Morgan relaxes the tiniest bit.

_It's tough to be seen through. But lucky, too, Derek guesses. What would he do if Reid took him at his word like everyone else? What would he do if Reid insisted on treating him differently and so much the same that it drove him crazy? _

_But Reid is Reid. He regards Derek the same as he always has, in the thoughtful way of a scientist studying some strange new phenomenon. He puts the pieces of this new puzzle together and just like that, he knows. He knows when Derek is lying through his teeth. _

_So, they stand like this, side by side, looking up at the starless night. It's a comfort, because his own darkness remains too close at hand. _

The thing about being down a member of their team is that it messes with JJ's mind. She has been incomplete long enough. Now is the time when she needs to feel her team around her, whole and healthy. The other thing about being down a member is that it inevitably brings up your own ghosts.

No ones comes right out and says it, but it's true, just the same. She knows in one quick glance that Rossi is having nightmares. And, if JJ is honest, Rossi is not the only one. She is having them, too. Sometimes, they're old; full of Tobias Hankel and his Jezebel-eating dogs. And sometimes, JJ dreams of Morgan. Of the sound of the bat making contact against his head. She dreams of her own failure, again and again. She dreams of how she was not there when he needed her.

But this is not the worst part. The worst is the horrific way what happened distorts the way she sees absolutely everything. It's like wearing Oz colored glasses in that play about The Wizard of Oz, she saw with Garcia. It distorts it all, making it seem like something it isn't.

JJ focuses because she has to. She does her job, because she must. But in the back of her mind, she worries. Finally, she gives in, and finds Reid, sitting it his desk, flipping through sheaves of paper, with a tiny smile on his lips.

"Hey. Is Morgan okay?" she asks, not bothering to mince words.

"Not really," he answers honestly. Then, Reid glances up, and looks her in the eye. "But are any of us?"

JJ purses her lips. She does not have an answer, and doesn't know if he expects one. It's been so long since they have sat across from one another like this. Since they have really talked.

She thinks, briefly, of calling Morgan herself, and instantly thinks better of it. He won't want to hear from her. Would _she_ want to hear from the person who failed to protect _her_? No chance in hell.

So, instead she calls home and talks to Henry, who is home, finally. Thank God. She keeps this part of her life quiet, though her team knows about it anyway. She sits, with the phone cradled against her ear, listening to her three-year-old tell her about how Daddy told him he shouldn't eat the old yogurt, but how Henry assured Will that it was "not old! It's brand new!"

JJ smiles, choosing, for the moment, to feel grateful for what she has, instead of grieving all the things she's nearly lost.

_Derek doesn't know why he's thinking of JJ. Of all the people he works with on his team, he wouldn't say he gets along the greatest with JJ. But for some reason, she is on his mind more than most. Maybe it's because she's made herself the most sparse of all of them. While Hotch, Reid and Rossi have made house calls, while Emily and Garcia each stopped by the hospital and even called a couple times, Derek does not remember seeing JJ._

_He wonders, instinctively, if she is feeling guilty. He sure as hell knows how that is. The only emotions he's feeling these days are anger, depression and guilt. Why did he always have to rush in and try to save everybody and everything instead of staying with his team, like he was meant to? Derek shakes his head. It aches._

_These days off have done nothing but make him stir crazy. That's probably why he's thinking of JJ, when he never has before. JJ is one person who can take care of herself. She guards her private life like something precious, and it is. Derek understands this. They are probably more alike than he has ever taken time to realize. Maybe that's why he avoids reaching out to her. He can't stand anybody doing the same for him. Especially not now. _

_He thinks about calling her, but what would he say? Besides, he thinks - glancing at the clock and struggling to read the time - JJ has a kid and he probably had a bedtime. _

_So instead, Derek paces. He knows better than to try and sleep. Nightmares plague him. During the day, pain lays him out. He doesn't know how he will ever get back to work in this kind of shape. Hotch will probably stick him behind a desk, and Derek will hate the shit out of it. Garcia will be there, though, so Derek guesses he will hate it a little less. _

_Ten minutes later, he gives up the pacing and decides, to hell with it. He picks up the phone and calls JJ's cell. He never would have before. But before, Derek had taken JJ for granted. Now, he knows she may not always be here. He may not always be here. Anything can happen at any time. The line rings. Once. Twice._

"_Agent Jareau," she answers in a way that lets Derek know that she has not looked at her Caller ID. _

"_Hey. It's Morgan," he says, and there is nothing but silence._

JJ is home now. She has been for hours. She has been busy, too. Henry is not in the mood to sleep. She has it on good authority that he wakes up screaming. He has a good reason for it. Hell, she would wake up screaming, too, if she had been through what Henry had. So, instead of sleeping, she stays awake with him. They sit in the rocking chair and reread Goodnight Moon, This Little Baby, Horton Hatches the Egg and Oh, The Places You'll Go until she's hoarse. Henry has heard them all that he can recite tiny passages of all of them.

When her voice needs a break, she gently opens their sliding glass door and takes her son out into the backyard. She tries to ignore the way he clutches at her shirt. JJ is determined that Henry will not grow up scared of everything.

Silently, with him still in her arms, she takes one of his small hands in hers and together, they are dancing beneath the moon to nothing at all. That is, until her phone rings, snapping her out of the moment.

"Agent Jareau," she answers curtly.

"Hey. It's Morgan."

She can't speak. JJ has tried with everything in her to put him out of her head, and yet, here he is.

"How are you?" she manages. It sounds wooden, but then, so does he. She guesses they are both in good company.

"Fine," he answers and JJ wants to laugh at how absurd his answer is. Clearly, he isn't fine. Nobody who's fine would call a coworker at 3:30 in the morning just to say hey.

"What's wrong?" he presses. "I can't stop thinking that something's wrong with you, so come clean so I can sleep," he demands sounding a little harsh and more than a little unfiltered.

JJ swallows. Then, she looks down at Henry who is still clutching her hand and staring at her with wide blue eyes. "Do you blame me? For what happened?" she asks bluntly.

"I'm the one who didn't wait for you, JJ, if anybody should be blamed it's me. You squared off with that son-of-a-bitch. You threatened to shoot him. Why would I blame you?"

"Because, I let it happen," she manages, touching Henry's soft head, and wondering suddenly, if it's really Morgan she's feeling guilty over or something else.

"I don't blame you. I love you," he says fiercely in a way that doesn't convey romanticism but friendship and respect. "Now knock it off, will you? Your worrying's giving me a headache."

Against her will, she laughs. "All right. Call if you need me, okay?"

"Only if you do the same," Morgan bargains.

"Okay," she says, and hangs up.

It's then that JJ glances down for a third time, shocked to see that with the release of her own guilt, Henry has somehow fallen asleep in her arms.

_In the coming days, Derek descends. There is no other word for it. He just sinks lower and lower into himself until there is nothing left. No lower place for him to go. _

_He does not call JJ. He doesn't call anyone. And he is grateful that they all stay away. It was nice, for a second, to think about somebody else. To put his own problems on the back burner. But now, here they are again. Not only on the front burner, but smoking up the whole damn place. He does not know what to do, so he sleeps. He has nowhere to be and no commitments. For once, no one calls, and just to be sure, he turns his phone on silent and unplugs the landline. He puts Clooney in the kennel outside with food and water. Then, he crawls into bed and tries to sleep._

_Against his hope, Derek's dreams are haunted by strange things. Natural disasters. Drowning. For some reason he cannot place, his abuse and the abuser have disappeared, but the fear of them lurking around is worse than dreaming of the abuse itself. _

_He wakes up, sweat soaking the sheets, his heart pounding. Derek can't even remember the dream this time, but he knows it will stay with him. He is in the shower when it comes back to him. Only it doesn't come back casually, it slams into him with the harshness of a pile of bricks._

_Just like that, Derek knows. He dreamed of his father dying._

_And then, he remembers JJ and her guilt. _

_He remembers being helpless to stop the inevitable. Being a child. Still, he thinks about what might be different, if he had changed one aspect of that day with his father. If he had taken his shirt off faster to stop the blood flow. If he had kept up, the way he was supposed to, instead of lagging behind to look at the candy._

_Guilt can be a terrible weight to carry, and unlike JJ, he has no one to give him absolution._

JJ is in the conference room, waiting for Garcia who will be doing her former job, briefing the team about where they will go next. JJ still hasn't gotten used to the fact that she doesn't know this part ahead of time, like she used to. But she likes her new role, too. She loves traveling with them, and really being a part of what is happening.

Morgan is in the briefing, too, though he's not going with them, and he knows it. Seeing him face to face is nothing like talking to him on the phone. It's nothing like seeing him in the hospital, when he barely registered her presence. He looks like himself, but he does not move like himself. It is this dichotomy that's so hard to reconcile.

He moves like he is fragile. While his size is roughly the same as always, he moves slowly and almost tentatively. When he arrives in the conference room, he stares at the seven chairs and shakes his head, like he has no idea what to do with so many.

"Here," she offers, pulling out the one beside her own.

He looks relieved and sits. Emily quickly fills the space on the other side of him and discreetly makes sure that he is able to follow along at least somewhat, since his I-Pad seems to be missing in action and only Hotch knows where it is. Hotch isn't here yet, and when he is, they'll be going over the case. There won't be time to look for missing equipment. Morgan will have plenty of time to find it later, because he is not cleared to go with the team yet.

JJ knows if it were her, she would be pissed to the high heavens if she were put behind a desk following an injury, so she involves him as much as possible. But there is no light in his eyes and he is looking more and more lost as the minutes pass.

As they get up to depart for St. Louis, JJ squeezes his hand and then makes a pit-stop beside Garcia, whispering, "Take care of him?"

"Oh, Sunshine. Don't I always?" Garcia returns softly. "Now go and save the world. We'll be here when you get back."

_At work, everything is the same. And everything is different. After the team boards the jet, minus Garcia and himself, Derek spends a good amount of time just walking around and taking things in. The offices. The desks. The bullpen. _

_Everything is like he has never left, and yet, it's obvious he has. Reid has Halloween bobble-heads on his desk. Derek knows if he were to open any given drawer, he would find a stash of candy - the only bright spot about Halloween - if you asked him._

_He still hasn't gotten over the sight of JJ's desk with the rest. Across from Reid and beside Emily. He wonders how many times a day Reid glances up and does a double-take, seeing these two amazing women that they came so close to losing._

_After a ridiculously long time loitering around everyone else's workspace Derek makes his way into his own office, ignoring Garcia's because he just needs to face this before he can do anything else. His office is clean, which means somebody must have cleaned it a little, in his absence. There's a vase of flowers. Sunflowers and some yellow, purple and pink ones he does not recognize. He knows without looking that these are from Garcia. On further inspection, he finds a new picture in the green frame with originally housed a picture of Garcia giving the I love you sign. Now, it has a picture of the seven of them. Hotch, JJ, Emily, himself, Garcia, Reid and Rossi. Derek does not know where she got it, but it simultaneously fills him and makes him feel hollow._

_Things are not the same._

_Derek's eyes fall on the spotless top of his desk and he narrows them. Hotch said that he left the St. Louis files on the desk. Well, there's nothing on the desk. He curses to himself, not too quietly and then sets about tearing apart all of Garcia's careful work, trying to find what he has lost._

Garcia hears a banging and some cursing and tosses her brand new beautiful sliver-rimmed glasses on the desk and charges out to see who is making all the racket. Really, she knows just who it is. And, really, Garcia does not need a reason to check on her main man.

He's kept her at arm's length enough when he was at home recovering. She still made sure that he had people checking on him. And she has it on good authority Hotch, Rossi and Reid all paid him visits and spent time with him, while he kept her away. No such luck now, being office neighbors with the nosy Garcia.

"What's this?" she asks, stepping carefully into the horrendous mess that surrounds Morgan's desk.

"Don't you ever knock?" he snaps.

"No," she answers, nonplussed, and continues making her way into the mess.

"Can't find my damn files. Hotch said he left them on the desk but there ain't a speck of anything _on _the desk…." he mutters. He looks handsome when he's all hot and bothered like this, but Garcia knows better than to call attention to it.

"The St. Louis file?" she queries, since that's where the team is today, minus Morgan. And her. Just her luck.

"Which file do you _think_?" he snaps angrily.

Instead of taking offense or offering her own snappy retort, Garcia stops short and really looks at him. Behind the mask of irritation, depression clings to her dearest friend like an aura. It hurts her heart that he is struggling so much. Instead of calling attention to it right away, she fights with his finicky desk drawer and pulls out the I-Pad that they have been using since she took over and made all things digital.

She lays it on his desk, and pulls up a chair and sits quietly.

"You okay?" she asks softly.

Surprised, he looks at her.

Very slowly, he shakes his head no.

_When Garcia comes in, unannounced, Derek very nearly tells her to turn tail and get the hell out. But she comes in, all optimism and helpfulness and starts digging through the contents of the piles on the floor. When none of them yield what he is looking for, she begins searching drawers. He's about to tell her he has already checked there, but it's too late. She yanks open the one that makes the most head-splitting screech and takes out the I-Pad. She doesn't say she told him so. Doesn't rub it in his face. But then, this is Garcia, and what is he expecting?_

_She asks if he is okay and he is about to lie his ass off when he sees it. The baseball she must've unearthed from one of the piles that she is casually tossing in the air and catching. He tries not to flinch but it's instinct. He can't help it. He tries to distract himself with mundane shit. Does Garcia have brothers? Maybe. He can't recall. But why else would she be tossing his damn baseball like this?_

_He shakes his head no._

_She stares at him an extra second, and then sets the ball in the sticky drawer and closes it inside._

_It's because she doesn't ask that he tells her._

Technically, she is supposed to be working. But, she doesn't really care. To Garcia, people take priority. Especially friends.

She senses it more than sees it. The way he stiffens and pulls away when she tosses the baseball. He used to do that very thing - toss the ball in the air - but something must have changed.

Deliberately, she puts it away and waits quietly. She has never played the game, but she has a feeling Morgan has. She has a feeling somehow that baseball is at the root of all this.

"_It's like I'm someone else…" he ventures quietly. "Like, the minute that asshole hit me… It… I don't know. But I don't feel like myself. I feel heavier. My real self, I feel it on the inside, but it can't express itself when I start talking. Nothing comes out right. I don't even sound like myself. I'd be surprised if I can actually read a damn file without taking eight breaks in between."_

_For her part, Garcia listens, looking at him with sympathy and understanding, nodding a little. _

"_Is this what it was like for you?" he asks, hesitating a little, because, as a rule, they did not bring up another's suffering. "When you got shot?"_

"_Kind of, yeah," she admits gently. "I think everybody's different, but that otherness you're talking about? I felt that. Oh, I completely felt that. For me, it was kind of a process of realizing that I couldn't go back to being the same person I was, no matter how much I wanted it. It happened and it changed me. So, I had to take it and somehow integrate it into my life and move on."_

"_But how? How do you…do anything like that, when it just keeps happening? When I can't close my eyes without seeing what happened?"_

_She waits, and Derek knows she can sense it. That there is more to say. He knows she won't push. That whether or not he says the words will remain up to him._

"_I used to play baseball," he says, his gaze unconsciously traveling to his open office door. He hopes no one will come by. He drops his voice, leaning closer. "Before I got involved at the youth center."_

_One of the million things he loves about Garcia is her ability to read between the lines. She had worked the case in Chicago. Knew what he was referring to without having to ask for clarification. He sees the moment she gets it. Her gaze softens even more._

"_He was always chasin' gangsters out with this big-ass bat he had, and it wasn't long before he told me…he'd use it to beat me if I told anybody what he was doing…"_

_Derek looks away. Her mercy, as always, is too much for him._

Garcia knows better than to try to touch Morgan now. She wishes she could. God, she wishes. But she knows she won't. Not until he loses this look in his eyes. The haunted, hurt look that he has worn - come to think of it - ever since he took the hit in the head when he was working with JJ in the field.

She feels the breath of the devil on her neck as Morgan tells her what that son-of-a-bitch did to him. How exactly, he kept Morgan quiet. Garcia doesn't ask questions. That would be totally invasive. But she does listen. Even though it hurts. Even though it breaks her heart.

She listens.

And when Morgan finally reaches out tentatively for her hand, she threads her fingers through his, and meets his eyes, tears tracking freely down her cheeks.

_This, Derek thinks, is how he steps out of the batter's box. That place he could not escape no matter how he tried. _

_It's no single act, it's everything. It's the way each single act combines with the one before it that, somehow, breaks his chains. _

_It's Emily coming back against the odds. It's JJ climbing back in the saddle, protecting him, and proving to Strauss and all those damn higher-ups that she should have never left. It's Reid and all his awkwardness that manifests in exactly what Derek needs at any given time, and it's Rossi, staying at the hospital until the early hours of the morning, like the father Derek lost twenty-five years ago. It's the way Hotch lets Derek's dog rest his slobbering head on his knee for the entire two hours Hotch stopped by to visit. And it's Garcia. It's how fiercely she loves them all. The way she never hesitates to go right exactly where he is, even if it hurts her._

_This, Derek sees with sudden clarity, is his team. These people will have his back without fail. Nothing gets twisted here, without damn good cause. For the first time in months, he genuinely relaxes. For the first time, he feels like if he goes and lies down, he may actually be able to sleep. _

_Going on faith and little else, Derek lets his eyes drift closed._

_Instead of that bastard who brutalized him, or the unsub who Derek hasn't stopped thinking of, he sees his team. He dreams that they are out on a field. He is at the plate, and when the ball comes toward him, Derek smashes it over the wall. _

_When he makes it all the way around the bases, he sees it, at his feet. The old wooden bat, splintered in pieces._

_His team comes out of the dugout and envelops him in hugs and congratulations. It takes a second before he realizes why something seems just a bit off. He blinks and then it's clear. _

_They're children. All of them, around elementary school age, undamaged by any of the things that would later haunt them. Derek is little again, too. He squints into the sun, toward the stands. Their families are all somehow there. Right down to Garcia's parents, JJ's sister, Reid's father, Derek's own father…_

_He closes his eyes and lets his team lift him up._


End file.
